From: Tony Arcieri <tony@...>
Date: 2010-01-27T04:07:28+09:00
Subject: Re: Why is the Binding object so useless?

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On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 8:07 AM, Robert Klemme
<shortcutter@googlemail.com>wrote:

> 2010/1/25 Tony Arcieri <tony@medioh.com>:
> > I am used to Ruby being a rather reflective language that gives carte
> > blanche to the programmer.  So I found this rather surprising:
> >
> >>> Marshal.dump binding
> > TypeError: no marshal_dump is defined for class Binding
> >
> > Whaa?
>
> I don't think it does make sense to serialize a binding for the same
> reason that you cannot create a new binding: a binding is bound to a
> particular program context - I assume this also includes caller stack
> and other internal state.
>

Why can't bindings be independently garbage collected objects too? (as it
appears they are in rbx)


> Even if a binding contains local variables what is the effect of
> deserializing a binding?  If your local variables get updated that is
> certainly not a good idea.  If you want to serialize state use objects
> with the proper state.
>

The goal is to have an object to pass to eval as the binding argument, not
to update locals.

Ideally I could pass a fresh binding (made with Binding.new) to eval, and
when eval is finished it will be updated with whatever assignments were made
in the evaluated code.  I could then serialize this and persist it until the
next eval call.

-- 
Tony Arcieri
Medioh! A Kudelski Brand

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